The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #3980   Message #21052
Posted By: Bob Taylor
09-Feb-98 - 12:41 PM
Thread Name: First Appearance in Public?
Subject: RE: First Appearance in Public?
The year would have been about 1966 or so. My friend learned to play the guitar, and I learned the baritone Ukulele. We thought we were pretty good for a couple of young teenage kids. We were asked if we would play and sing for the Baptist Mens group at the local Baptist Church. We accepted the invitation and carefully selected our songs. We sang a bluesy version of "Jesus Met the Woman At the Well" and we saw a lot of negative head shaking. Unfortunately, we had only prepared two songs, so even with the negative feelings about the first song, we had no choice but to plow ahead into the second song.

Then we sang "Sampson," the one with a line in the chorus about "If I had my way, I would tear this building down….." Well unfortunately, the chairman of the Board of Deacons thought we were advocating tearing down the Baptist Church. Cries of religious anarchy were raised. Our performance was stopped, and we were asked to leave, even before we got our ham, mashed potato, and green been dinner, as prepared by the ladies of the church. Many of the church members offered to pray for us, and we understand that our names were mentioned at Wednesday Night Prayer Meetings for years.

We were never invited back.